Written Proposal
What:
The area I intend to research is the well-being of stand-up comedian. And the precise question I will be addressing is: How can Chinese stand-up comedians improve their well-being from the negative reflection from the audience?
Why:
As a stand-up comedian myself, I used to and still struggling to manage my well-being when facing negative comments from the audience. Offline on stage, the negative reflection can be very direct, that is, you tell a joke, the audience don’t laugh. Online is even worse, no matter whichever app I am using, the big data assumes that I am interested in content related to my name or stand-up comedy, and it keep recommending me the negative reflection from the audience, and also how great other comedians can be. Even though I also receive positive comments, I still care about negative comments more. If I am fed up with one app and want to change into another, the big data in another app will continue assuming me like those contens. And this is also the same to the world, some comedians even quit using internet because of that.
How:
To accomplish my project in practical terms, I want to talk to a few comedians with different background, different status, different geographic areas, get to know better about the well-being problem they are facing, as well as talk to some founders to see their attitudes and opinions toward the well-being of comedians. I want to seek for opportunity to set up an unfunny open-mic in a gong show format, if you made people laugh, you are out. At the same time, it can also make the audience more relaxed, because if you ask others not to laugh, out of a restricted mentality or a mischievous mentality, they will all want to laugh more. By that way, comedians can gain confidence by knowing being funny can be very easy and not being funny at all is actually hard.
My rough schedule is:
April-Mid June: Chat with comedians and founders. Get a rough idea about unfunny open-mic.
Late June-Mid September: Carry out unfunny open-mic around China and gain external feedback.
Late September-November: Theoretical summary and prepare for graduation showcase festival.
What if:
This project will gain positive implications on giving a place for comedians to have a rest and chill out from the stress audiences brought to them, thus improve their well-being. And unfunny open-mic have business potential as this reversed kind of open-mic is a blank market now. And it will bring positive impact as it can enhance Chinese stand-up comedy industry. At the end of the course, my position will be a influencer of Chinese stand-up industry and the producer and intellectual property owner of unfunny open-mic. And for my stakeholders, comedians can benifit from this project by raising their wellbeing, founders can benifit from being introduced a new type of content of the performance, audiences can benifit from being more chill to enjoy shows and hopefully letting go some of the critical view.
Reading List:
Smith, John. “An Analysis of Disability Studies.” Disability Studies Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 4, 2010, https://ojs.library.osu.edu/index.php/dsq/article/view/6163.
Hoffner, C. A., & Bond, B. J. (2022). Parasocial relationships, social media, & well-being. Current Opinion in Psychology, 45, 101306. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X22000082
Learning Agreement
1 Study hard when study, enjoy myself fully when relaxing.
2 Stay optimistic as possible.
3 Have faith in what I am doing.
4 Leave sometime to explore the world, that is also an important part to contriburte to the project.
5 Spend more time to sleep, keep energetic.